►►► Want to fix your lawn for the long haul but don't know where to start? I can help! Click here right now and get started today: turfmech.link/dont-know-where-to-start ◄◄◄
Hey! Awesome video. I was helping a neighbor with dandelions, and my tradition thinking is to get out the weed killer. However, dandelions are awesome at indicating compacted soil, and also that the soil is high in calcium. The weed actually makes the soil better for grass. So, prior to this video, I recommended that my neighbor mows twice a week and we put some humate out to loosen up the soil and make it more nutrient available. My hope, actually I know, that in a few weeks the weed pressure will soften and the weeds will be choked out by the thinker turf. I just wanted to let you know this was a very timely video and as always, I learn something new during all your content. Thanks for keeping it real, and practical. Lawns are a lot easier when you know the timing of proactive events to make, and the actual problem that a weed is showing us so that we can correct further. These lawn systems are smart, and have a tale to tell about the soil. Thanks for everything!
Thanks for the long and thoughtful comment Matt! Timing is so important in lawns for sure. Another thought is that Spring is when dandelions push new foliar growth and flower and then they relax a bit through the summer so pushing good grass growth now will help choke them out because by June the grass will be lush and the dandelions will be sitting back waiting for fall - then that's the best time to kill them as they start pushing more of their energy into the root systems as they prepare for winter. I actually have tried to kill dandelions in about 50 sqft of yard space over the past three weeks and they are so strong this time of year, it's hard to kill them with basic OTC products.
Thanks for the great tip! seems to make sense, just remove the flowers before they seed, then mow the lawn and leave the cuttings there to let the nutrients from the dandelion leaves that were cut back into the soil, over time the grass will get healthier and eventually take over...problem is neighbor beside me has front lawn with 80% dandelion 20% grass, and doesn't mow before the seeds are blown to everyone near him. It'll be a constant struggle.
This was an amazing video. Completely changed my perspective on managing dandelions. The rental property I‘ve been living at for the last year and a half has never had any type of lawn maintenance prior to me living here and the yard is absolutely full of dandelions and clover. I got on here to figure out how to kill them off and build up the turf, but now I’m going to use it to my advantage . Thank you!
So glad to hear that Brody! I try to see all perspectives on this channel and help people out any way I can. I maintained a lot of dandelions on part of my property at my last house and was fine with it, this new house we don't have many but I do have a lot of medic. That's another nitrogen fixer which isn't terrible but it's a creepy crawly so I'll probably be trying to rid the lawn of that this season. Good luck with your property and always remember to keep lawn care as enjoyable as possible!
Lifes too short to care about dandelions. Im not growing food in my front lawn and neither are the neighbors. People who get the grass looking nice for the sake of just having nice grass can do their hobby all they want. Im fine.
Well, I don't see any lawn channels with native plants in the yard. Their yards are sterile deserts that happen to be green. There's no detectable love of the natural environment, but it's more like the opposite. It's usually just neurotic, and fundamentally anti-nature. I have native forbs all over my yard and I work on the lawn also. I get rid of all dandelions because they're hideously ugly and don't attract significant pollinators. I do think there should be some modest ecosystem support everywhere, not neurotic groundskeeping and prodiamine being sprayed everywhere. Some people on the other hand turn their whole subdivision lot into a native prairie and that looks bad and like a crazy person lives there, which is the case.
I appreciate the props George! Since I have decided to not kill so many deliberately I had to find ways to justify them sticking around the property, LOL - Since I made this vid though I've found a handful off them sprinkled through the main yard... I'll be going after those soon I'm sure.
Great video Brian, thank you. Could you share your thoughts about more natural lawns? I don't mind different grasses and flowers, just don't want the ugly weeds taking over my lawn.
I keep a very well cared for main lawn, a fairly natural hill yard, and then my extended yards are completely natural except for the fact that I mow them down once every few weeks to keep them walkable and encourage undesirable animals to stay further away from the house. I think having multiple grass types is great different height settings is great and having more rustic yard space is worthwhile especially if you have enough land to segment it all out. Some of the fine fescues lend themselves to no-mow consideration and in the warm season climates Centipede is very low maintenance as far as I understand it. Trick is to think of your yard as a garden, few gardens are just one flower or ornamental plant; they are mixed together for beauty and interest. I'd love to see someone tend to their lawn in such a way. I'm not there but I am planning on seeding some micro-clover later this year and may be experimenting with a few other grass types throughout the property if I can get around to it.
It may depend on where you're at. Places that get cold dandelions disappear and does nothing to absorb water from melted snow. Plus dandelions kill good grass by crowding the ground. But I heard dandelions help prevent grubs, because grubs prefer soft grass roots. But the most important reason to get rid of dandelions is most people lazy don't remove them and you can be seen as one of the lazy ones in the neighborhood. Dandelions are a weed problem because they reproduce and spread so robustly and kills good grass by crowding. And good grass looks better.
This true......I started pulling off the flowers at my Godsons bus stop to pass the wait time and quickly found it helped ALOT. Now I bounty them to any child for ice cream or cookies and they cannot get enough of it. So b4 u grab weed killer, grab thee some kid, neighbor kids, grandkids or in need of a few bucks kids!
@@TurfMechanic When I used Lawn Chemicals I never really took time to enjoy wildlife in my yard . Since I gave a chems a break , the bird feeder brought life back . ( Beetles , Earthworms, Rolly Pollies , Hawks , Owls , Foxes Etc ) The neighbors & I really enjoy seeing the balance being restored.
Most homeowners have a pet peeve about their lawn. They want their lawn to look manicured, attractive and they don't want a bunch of dandelions and other weeds overpopulating it. They will take extreme measures to control and eradicate the infestation of weeds on their lawn. Homeowners wants to take care of their beautiful grass, not have an infestation of weeds! There are people who will purposely neglect their lawns and don't take care of it. They will let the weeds grow sky high and all over the yard without bother to control nor kill them.
I manage the lawns where I work, we have inner lawns close to the building and outer lawns outside the parking lots. I like to kill the dandelions on the inner lawns so things look nice and professional, but i leave the outer lawns alone for the most part when it comes to weeds, because yeah, i want to give those early pollinators something
Thanks Jay, I'm so late in getting to my comments, 1-week ago YT tells me. Vacation really got me behind on a lot of stuff. Hope to see you in the comments again sometime soon!
I have a very nice lawn free of weeds, i woke up this morning with hundreds of dandelions seeds on my grass, flew over from neighbors lawns to my lawn, i don't want them to germinate, what should I do? Thanks
Go over it with the mower and bag them. Make sure the deck is up a setting more than normally so you get best airflow and suction and mow over the lawn slowly and possibly a couple times to suck up as many as possible. If you want to go the extra mile then consider a fall Pre-emergent to halt germination after hot summer temps fade away.
The only reason I'm trying to get the dandelions under control is that my neighbors all have nice lawns. I don't mind some dandelions, my front yard is kinda hag to begin with, and I'm renting so I am not going to redo the whole front yard without landlords help. I can just try to minimize how many of them spread to other people's yards.
That is kinda where I am. The neighbor across the street is anti-chemical anything. He had been putting bucket after bucket of coffee grounds in his garden bed. Things were turning yellow so I did a pH test and it showed like 5.5 in those beds. I brought him a coffee can full of hydrated lime and advised him to put about a tablespoon for every 3 feet of bed once every 3 months while he was adding all that coffee. The soil around here tends to run about 7.2-7.4 anyway so he WAAAY overdid what should have been very beneficial effort when he started it. Well he refused to use lime to correct his pH cause it is a chemical. Pretty much everything died by mid summer, but at least he recognized that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. I tried to explain to him that lime is limestone that has been cooked till the CO2 was removed, blah, blah wont hear anything. I finally pointed out that water and air are chemicals too. End of that discussion. Griped about the 2 cycle weed eater one time, so I got a plug in electric, it worked well but it is a pain to drag the cord around and If I decide to go down the fencerow out back, it will have to be either battery or gas. I gave him the electric weedeater, a high end Stihl mind you, and he threw it in the trash!!! Anyhow, he went all out last year, spent thousands, 5 figures I'm sure, to put in a native wildflower garden, zero lawn, all either rock, pavement or plants. Now in principle I would rather not use complicated synthetic who knows what so I sort of agree with him. But I shudder to think how many hours I have spent this year pulling weeds. Mission impossible if nearby neighbors arent controlling them too. The neighbor next to him has a professionally sprayed gorgeous bermuda monoculture. So here I am, on either side of me are dont care and dont have time/money to manage the lawn in a rent house, and across the street are two extreme ends of the spectrum. Ok what do I do? My back said no mas the first week of may and I sprayed the strip down one side that had very little visible grass, almost entirely weeds, other than nice bermuda in a circle around Walker's Low Catmint, quite curious observation, that hybrid mint is doing something to supress weeds around it, in fact it is a bit of a chore to keep the bermuda from choking out the catmint by mid-summer. Mark that one down. That is the side closest to and most often immediately downwind of dont care. In the main part of the yard I have been grazing this whole spring trying to do it the ecomaniac way. I am to the point where to hell with principle, I am ready to spend 10 bucks, 1 hour and be done with it. To hell with hands and knees grazing in perpetuity. Sorry dude, pre-emergent next spring.
Did you make this video to troll us? :) I am a simple man, I see a weed in my lawn, I try to kill it. Sadly my neighbor loves weeds, the more the merrier, especially dandelions. That hill looks like it gets a lot of Sun, you could overseed it and squeeze out the enemy
People just do your research, if you care what other people think of YOUR yard, there’s other problems in your life! There is pros and cons on anything, but Dandelion, we are going to war with Dandelion’s, come on. I’m no tree hugger, but as a homesteader and someone that loves the fact that being self sustainable and producing food that was pollinated by bees that love the Dandelions. Pretty, I want my yard pretty, sorry my friend you have been brainwashed, and you will not survive when this world goes to shit. Money, we’ll your money will be no good then too. Hehe, wake up people, enjoy what you get naturally, it’s what’s supposed to be there. It’s only a weed because someone supposedly said it was a weed. That same people said that all those fertilizers were good for the land and look where we are at today. How do we save Mother Earth? Change one brainwashed mind at a time! Spread the word!
►►► Want to fix your lawn for the long haul but don't know where to start? I can help! Click here right now and get started today: turfmech.link/dont-know-where-to-start ◄◄◄
Hey! Awesome video. I was helping a neighbor with dandelions, and my tradition thinking is to get out the weed killer. However, dandelions are awesome at indicating compacted soil, and also that the soil is high in calcium. The weed actually makes the soil better for grass. So, prior to this video, I recommended that my neighbor mows twice a week and we put some humate out to loosen up the soil and make it more nutrient available. My hope, actually I know, that in a few weeks the weed pressure will soften and the weeds will be choked out by the thinker turf. I just wanted to let you know this was a very timely video and as always, I learn something new during all your content. Thanks for keeping it real, and practical. Lawns are a lot easier when you know the timing of proactive events to make, and the actual problem that a weed is showing us so that we can correct further. These lawn systems are smart, and have a tale to tell about the soil.
Thanks for everything!
Thanks for the long and thoughtful comment Matt! Timing is so important in lawns for sure. Another thought is that Spring is when dandelions push new foliar growth and flower and then they relax a bit through the summer so pushing good grass growth now will help choke them out because by June the grass will be lush and the dandelions will be sitting back waiting for fall - then that's the best time to kill them as they start pushing more of their energy into the root systems as they prepare for winter. I actually have tried to kill dandelions in about 50 sqft of yard space over the past three weeks and they are so strong this time of year, it's hard to kill them with basic OTC products.
Thanks for the great tip! seems to make sense, just remove the flowers before they seed, then mow the lawn and leave the cuttings there to let the nutrients from the dandelion leaves that were cut back into the soil, over time the grass will get healthier and eventually take over...problem is neighbor beside me has front lawn with 80% dandelion 20% grass, and doesn't mow before the seeds are blown to everyone near him. It'll be a constant struggle.
I love my dandelions that are growing in my yard and I'm taking the seeds and planting them And growing tree seats from the wild!!!
what do you mean by "tree seats"?
This was an amazing video. Completely changed my perspective on managing dandelions. The rental property I‘ve been living at for the last year and a half has never had any type of lawn maintenance prior to me living here and the yard is absolutely full of dandelions and clover. I got on here to figure out how to kill them off and build up the turf, but now I’m going to use it to my advantage . Thank you!
So glad to hear that Brody! I try to see all perspectives on this channel and help people out any way I can. I maintained a lot of dandelions on part of my property at my last house and was fine with it, this new house we don't have many but I do have a lot of medic. That's another nitrogen fixer which isn't terrible but it's a creepy crawly so I'll probably be trying to rid the lawn of that this season. Good luck with your property and always remember to keep lawn care as enjoyable as possible!
Lifes too short to care about dandelions. Im not growing food in my front lawn and neither are the neighbors. People who get the grass looking nice for the sake of just having nice grass can do their hobby all they want. Im fine.
This needs to be shared people’s mentality is disjointed with marketing from these lawn treatment people
Well, I don't see any lawn channels with native plants in the yard. Their yards are sterile deserts that happen to be green. There's no detectable love of the natural environment, but it's more like the opposite. It's usually just neurotic, and fundamentally anti-nature. I have native forbs all over my yard and I work on the lawn also. I get rid of all dandelions because they're hideously ugly and don't attract significant pollinators. I do think there should be some modest ecosystem support everywhere, not neurotic groundskeeping and prodiamine being sprayed everywhere. Some people on the other hand turn their whole subdivision lot into a native prairie and that looks bad and like a crazy person lives there, which is the case.
I pluck dandelion seed heads too. I do treat them spring and fall but in-between I just remove the seeds.
Awesome video Brian, dandelions have been the major crop on my property since for ever.
I never knew all this stuff about them.
#Fresh content
I appreciate the props George! Since I have decided to not kill so many deliberately I had to find ways to justify them sticking around the property, LOL - Since I made this vid though I've found a handful off them sprinkled through the main yard... I'll be going after those soon I'm sure.
Great video Brian, thank you. Could you share your thoughts about more natural lawns? I don't mind different grasses and flowers, just don't want the ugly weeds taking over my lawn.
I keep a very well cared for main lawn, a fairly natural hill yard, and then my extended yards are completely natural except for the fact that I mow them down once every few weeks to keep them walkable and encourage undesirable animals to stay further away from the house. I think having multiple grass types is great different height settings is great and having more rustic yard space is worthwhile especially if you have enough land to segment it all out. Some of the fine fescues lend themselves to no-mow consideration and in the warm season climates Centipede is very low maintenance as far as I understand it. Trick is to think of your yard as a garden, few gardens are just one flower or ornamental plant; they are mixed together for beauty and interest. I'd love to see someone tend to their lawn in such a way. I'm not there but I am planning on seeding some micro-clover later this year and may be experimenting with a few other grass types throughout the property if I can get around to it.
@@TurfMechanic Thank you! It will be interesting to see the results of your rexperimenting.
I never knew any of this. Thank you for this video!
It may depend on where you're at. Places that get cold dandelions disappear and does nothing to absorb water from melted snow. Plus dandelions kill good grass by crowding the ground. But I heard dandelions help prevent grubs, because grubs prefer soft grass roots. But the most important reason to get rid of dandelions is most people lazy don't remove them and you can be seen as one of the lazy ones in the neighborhood. Dandelions are a weed problem because they reproduce and spread so robustly and kills good grass by crowding. And good grass looks better.
This true......I started pulling off the flowers at my Godsons bus stop to pass the wait time and quickly found it helped ALOT. Now I bounty them to any child for ice cream or cookies and they cannot get enough of it. So b4 u grab weed killer, grab thee some kid, neighbor kids, grandkids or in need of a few bucks kids!
Finches & sparrows love those puffy flowers that we blew as kids .
Interesting comment CR, I'll have to research that a bit; never heard of birds taking to them before.
@@TurfMechanic When I used Lawn Chemicals I never really took time to enjoy wildlife in my yard . Since I gave a chems a break , the bird feeder brought life back . ( Beetles , Earthworms, Rolly Pollies , Hawks , Owls , Foxes Etc ) The neighbors & I really enjoy seeing the balance being restored.
We have little golden warblers that visit and eat the tiny dandelion seeds out of the pod, one at a time.
Most homeowners have a pet peeve about their lawn. They want their lawn to look manicured, attractive and they don't want a bunch of dandelions and other weeds overpopulating it. They will take extreme measures to control and eradicate the infestation of weeds on their lawn. Homeowners wants to take care of their beautiful grass, not have an infestation of weeds! There are people who will purposely neglect their lawns and don't take care of it. They will let the weeds grow sky high and all over the yard without bother to control nor kill them.
I manage the lawns where I work, we have inner lawns close to the building and outer lawns outside the parking lots. I like to kill the dandelions on the inner lawns so things look nice and professional, but i leave the outer lawns alone for the most part when it comes to weeds, because yeah, i want to give those early pollinators something
Right on Brian, though I am number 4!!!
Thanks Jay, I'm so late in getting to my comments, 1-week ago YT tells me. Vacation really got me behind on a lot of stuff. Hope to see you in the comments again sometime soon!
I have a very nice lawn free of weeds, i woke up this morning with hundreds of dandelions seeds on my grass, flew over from neighbors lawns to my lawn, i don't want them to germinate, what should I do? Thanks
Go over it with the mower and bag them. Make sure the deck is up a setting more than normally so you get best airflow and suction and mow over the lawn slowly and possibly a couple times to suck up as many as possible. If you want to go the extra mile then consider a fall Pre-emergent to halt germination after hot summer temps fade away.
@@TurfMechanic sounds like a plan, Thanks for your time.
The only reason I'm trying to get the dandelions under control is that my neighbors all have nice lawns. I don't mind some dandelions, my front yard is kinda hag to begin with, and I'm renting so I am not going to redo the whole front yard without landlords help. I can just try to minimize how many of them spread to other people's yards.
That is kinda where I am. The neighbor across the street is anti-chemical anything. He had been putting bucket after bucket of coffee grounds in his garden bed. Things were turning yellow so I did a pH test and it showed like 5.5 in those beds. I brought him a coffee can full of hydrated lime and advised him to put about a tablespoon for every 3 feet of bed once every 3 months while he was adding all that coffee. The soil around here tends to run about 7.2-7.4 anyway so he WAAAY overdid what should have been very beneficial effort when he started it. Well he refused to use lime to correct his pH cause it is a chemical. Pretty much everything died by mid summer, but at least he recognized that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. I tried to explain to him that lime is limestone that has been cooked till the CO2 was removed, blah, blah wont hear anything. I finally pointed out that water and air are chemicals too. End of that discussion. Griped about the 2 cycle weed eater one time, so I got a plug in electric, it worked well but it is a pain to drag the cord around and If I decide to go down the fencerow out back, it will have to be either battery or gas. I gave him the electric weedeater, a high end Stihl mind you, and he threw it in the trash!!!
Anyhow, he went all out last year, spent thousands, 5 figures I'm sure, to put in a native wildflower garden, zero lawn, all either rock, pavement or plants. Now in principle I would rather not use complicated synthetic who knows what so I sort of agree with him. But I shudder to think how many hours I have spent this year pulling weeds. Mission impossible if nearby neighbors arent controlling them too. The neighbor next to him has a professionally sprayed gorgeous bermuda monoculture. So here I am, on either side of me are dont care and dont have time/money to manage the lawn in a rent house, and across the street are two extreme ends of the spectrum. Ok what do I do? My back said no mas the first week of may and I sprayed the strip down one side that had very little visible grass, almost entirely weeds, other than nice bermuda in a circle around Walker's Low Catmint, quite curious observation, that hybrid mint is doing something to supress weeds around it, in fact it is a bit of a chore to keep the bermuda from choking out the catmint by mid-summer. Mark that one down. That is the side closest to and most often immediately downwind of dont care. In the main part of the yard I have been grazing this whole spring trying to do it the ecomaniac way. I am to the point where to hell with principle, I am ready to spend 10 bucks, 1 hour and be done with it. To hell with hands and knees grazing in perpetuity. Sorry dude, pre-emergent next spring.
Are we growing turf grass lawns, or fields of wildflowers?
Hi i have more dandilion than grass lol when you say mowing lawn do i pic up cuttings or let it drop back onto grass thanks
Thought you were talking about leaving them in the lawn at first. That could never happen in my yard. Adjacent land or field nearby? Sure.
I wouldn't use chemicals on the lawn, it will leech back into water supply.
Excellent video! Thank you!
Did you make this video to troll us? :) I am a simple man, I see a weed in my lawn, I try to kill it. Sadly my neighbor loves weeds, the more the merrier, especially dandelions. That hill looks like it gets a lot of Sun, you could overseed it and squeeze out the enemy
Moral of the story is…..you don’t have to kill every weed.
Dandelions are food for the bees also.
I think it is the leaves that are edible.
Eat them ! .. and it may help with your brain function ! .. They are there for a reason ! .
People just do your research, if you care what other people think of YOUR yard, there’s other problems in your life!
There is pros and cons on anything, but Dandelion, we are going to war with Dandelion’s, come on. I’m no tree hugger, but as a homesteader and someone that loves the fact that being self sustainable and producing food that was pollinated by bees that love the Dandelions.
Pretty, I want my yard pretty, sorry my friend you have been brainwashed, and you will not survive when this world goes to shit. Money, we’ll your money will be no good then too. Hehe, wake up people, enjoy what you get naturally, it’s what’s supposed to be there. It’s only a weed because someone supposedly said it was a weed. That same people said that all those fertilizers were good for the land and look where we are at today.
How do we save Mother Earth?
Change one brainwashed mind at a time! Spread the word!
You're 🤪 crazy. Who wants to keep dandelion. It will destroy my beautiful garden.
Grow some ganja
Dude, you gotta stop pronouncing it “dandylion”. It’s “danduhlion”.
Haha, ill consider it but no guarantees! 😁🤣
it's more like dan del lion
@@marsbeads that’s weird with two “L’s”. Sorry but it’s a “duh” sound in the middle.
@@jimshorts5970 maybe I should have done it this way. "dan deh lion" I'm trying to show the pronunciation. Definitely, not dan "duh"
@@marsbeads you DO know you can get the pronunciation from a search, right? Definitely pronounced “duh”. Sorry:(